Given standard Xtranormal fare, this may be the most boring such video I've seen. But, clearly, it's been created by someone who is an insider, probably on the police force, who is venting about certain administrative decisions and administrators. The police and the city prosecutor then cooked up a search warrant (embedded below) to try to identify the person behind the videos, who variously goes by the name MrFuddlesticks, whothehellispenny or tellinthetruth. That search warrant was obtained by a local news channel, KIROTV, who originally broke this story. It spells out various evidence as to why the videos are clearly about people and incidents involving the Renton police force.

And then, it tries to claim that the whole thing is "cyberstalking." Why? Because apparently some of the people the video is mocking say they're embarrassed about the videos. That seems to be the extent of the cyberstalking. As you read the filing, though, the details of the warrant appear to suggest that many of the references in the videos refer to actual events.

It's extremely difficult to see how anything here raises to the level of cyberstalking. KIROTV asked lawyer Venkat Balasubramani (whose blog posts we regularly link to here) his opinion on the search warrrant, and he noted that:

“The cyberstalking angle doesn't pass the laugh test," Balasubramani told KIRO-TV. "It's a serious stretch and I'd be surprised if somebody looked at it and realistically thought these acts actually fit the statute and we could make somebody criminally liable."

When we asked about the more likely scenario, Balasubramani said, "I think they were trying to get at the speaker and they looked around for a statute that shoehorned their conduct into and sent that to Google and said ‘turn over the information.”

Historically, Google and You-Tube are far more likely to cough up an anonymous animator's real name when there's a criminal case, as opposed to just an internal affairs investigation into some personnel issues.

In fact, from the warrant, it looks like Google just handed over the info upon receipt of the subpoena, without questioning it at all. The city was then trying to get more info from Google about the gmail address that "mrfuddlesticks" was using, in an effort to identify the person.

This seems like a pretty broad overreach. The prosecutor appears to be taking a exceptionally broad interpretation of the cyberstalking law, saying that anything done "with intent to harass... torment, or embarass" is criminal. As Eugene Volokh has pointed out, if the law really allows for such an interpretation, then the law is "clearly unconstitutionally overbroad." Furthermore he notes:

Moreover, the statute would be clearly unconstitutional as applied to this video, and the prosecutor and the judge ought to know this. (The prosecutor is Renton Chief Prosecutor Shawn Arthur; the judge on an earlier warrant was James Cayce, but I don’t know what the affidavit said there, and I don’t know the name of the judge who apparently issued the warrant based on the affidavit included with the KIRO story.) A search warrant can only be issued if there is probable cause to believe that it will uncover evidence of a crime; since the material described in the affidavit can’t be made criminal under the cited statute, given the First Amendment, the warrant ought not have been issued. The government is not permitted to use its coercive power to identify the author of this constitutionally protected video.

This whole thing raises tremendous abuse of power and First Amendment questions. It seems that their entire intent is to try to identify someone who is mocking them publicly by abusing certain laws and procedures to reveal that anonymous parodist.

I hope he covered his tracks

Considering how easy it is for law enforcement to get corporations to cough up information, it seems the only way to go is to use fake info.

As far as I can tell, the only place he might have been vulnerable is with Xtranormal since he used more than the free level of service, they might have payment information. Even that can be obscured, though. Good luck, dude!

More judicial stupidity

A search warrant can only be issued if there is probable cause to believe that it will uncover evidence of a crime; since the material described in the affidavit can’t be made criminal under the cited statute, given the First Amendment, the warrant ought not have been issued.

They didn't pay attention to this in the ICE seizures, either. Apparently "guilty until proven innocent" is how many judges operate nowadays.

Hopefully their higher-ups in the circuit courts will smack them down. A man can dream, can't he?

well

Holy shit 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% of the interwebs needs to be shut down NOW (for the children etc)........

I say we find the creator of keyboard cat and publicly behead them in a middle school gym for daring to embarass cats & their owners.....

Then we can start on all those that ever took the piss out of Michael Jackson (This will also double as population control since we can set up mass extermination camps..all we need to do is show people something deemed "humorous yet embarassing" and if they crack a smile we shoot em in the back of the head MAFIAA (not a typo) style....

Re: I hope he covered his tracks

Very true. Although in this case, Google didn't have a choice - this was a search warrant, not a subpoena.

Subpoenas can be challenged by making a motion to quash, search warrants cannot. That is why a search warrant requires a magistrate to validate the existence of probable cause.

What's especially disgusting about this is that the remedy for an unconstitutional search is exclusion from evidence in the criminal proceeding. Since it is clear that here they are using the criminal justice system on a pretensual basis in order to obtain information. Its absolutely revolting that the prosecutor would take part in this.

Very similar - prosecutor colluding with law enforcement. Bullied citizens, crushed peoples lives, did not respect his office nor understand his authority or responsibility to the community. Now he is being prosecuted.

Thing is, the cops in Washington State should be viewed with contempt and disrepect. Hold it, I mean the pigs, er the fuzz, wtf. If they have a badge, then HATE them. Anybody with a badge is the ENEMY. KILL MURDER MAYHEM.

If only!

If only every internet account were tied inexplicably to the "real" government-issued identification of the user, troublemakers like this "parodist" could be silenced, or at least identified and jailed.

Re: Re:

You think people should just be able to run around making fun of our proud men and women in blue without being punished? These people are out there risking their life day after day. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from getting what is coming to you.

Nice Job

The search warrant declaration is funnier (and more disturbing), in my mind, than the video. It also causes hugely more defamation and embarrassment than the videos and so is far closer to actual harassment. Either all of these officials are remarkably obtuse or one (or more) of them is not and she/he has created a plan for the most brilliant revelation of a dysfunctional public service that I have ever seen - the people hushing it up actually make public what was hushed. I think several top Renton officials have just incriminated themselves (or were incriminated) in breach of public trust charges or at least demotion or dismissal. If the latter (a scheme rather than a Marx Brothers comedy - "Duck Soup" come to mind), the designer(s) of this scheme should have worked for the CIA in covert operations and counter terrorism; The cold war would have ended in 1960 and 9/11/2001 wold not have happened.

I saw this on local news this morning and I'm sure it will go federal. It's good timing - the public is generally upset at dysfunctional government and the media is tuned in to this issue at he moment with the budget mishandling.

Re: Re:

Re: Re: Re:

"These people are out there risking their life day after day."

Not the ones being made fun of.

The individuals under attack don't take risks. They are leeches who achieved their current soft positions by riding on the backs of the real cops and sucking the life out of their hosts when they had served their purpose.

These are the individuals who cause the men and women in blue to have so much trouble with their image. I still remember back when I was young and the police were heroes who put their lives on the line to protect the innocent. Well, maybe not heroes but they were respected. Today the leeches have sucked all that respectability out of the force by dragging the whole system through the muck with them as they pursue their personal interests.

The same corruption has happened in all walks of society, but the police had the farthest to fall and the most to be embarrassed about.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Under the standard the police are using, a newspaper printing an article on their website about a criminal would be guilty of cyberstalking...if the police hold a press conference and have the information online, they would likewise be guilty.

Kiro7 News: Renton Police Shopped Prosecutors To Make Case

crooked police.

There around crimimals all day so why not act like them. Cops and district atty's are becoming more and more like criminals themselves. I was watching a show today on Date Line, prime example of police coruption and missconduct. I will never visit ROCK HILL SOUTH CAROLINA, sorry Carrowinds. I hope the sAME EXACT THING HAPPENS TO SOMEONE IN THEIR FAMLIES, DISCUSTING.

CROOKED COPS

YOU REALLY SHOULD THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX SOME TIME. COME TO FIND OUT THAT THEY HAD BEEN MAKING ALL THE DECISIONS WITH THEIR HEAD IN THE TOILET. I HAVE HAD TO PERFORM MANY OPERATIONS TO CORRECT THIS. SOMETIMES THE PATIENT HAS "OCULAR RECTAL LITAS" THIS IS WHERE THEIR OCULAR NERVES ARE ATTACHED TO THEIR ASS HOLE AND THEY HAVE A SHITTY OUT LOOK ON LIFE. I ALSO HAVE A OVER LOAD OF WIN DECTAMIES. THATS THEN THESE COPS AND DISTRICT ATTYS HAVE THEIR HEAD SO FAR UP THEIR ASSES THAT I HAVE TO INSTALL A WINDOW IN THEIR BELLY SO THEY CAN SEE WHERE THEIR GOING. i AM WILLING TO OFFER MY SERVICES TO THE POLICE DEPT AND PROSICUTORS OFFICE. LOOKS LIKE THEY ALL HAVE A BAD CASE OF OCULAR RECTAL LITAS.

Unconstitutional bullshit like this happens all the time with fuckhead cops. That's why everyone hates cops now. They are all pieces of shit that abuse their power and just beat and kill anyone who doesn't go along with their plans. Fuck I hate this country more and more every day....

Re:

There is something about that robotic text-to-speech that makes glib lines exceptionally hilarious. There are much more advanced T2S apps now but they dont seem to work as well (comedic-ly speaking) as the old style.

Typical...

of the corrupt cops we have in this country. They arrest people for videotaping officers cause they don't want evidence of , for example, cops beating an unresisting person. They want to avoid another Rodney King incident by merely outlawing videos showing a brutal beatdown.

And of course the video will generate a lot of criticism of the police, which they seem to deserve.

It's a mark of corrupt cops that they cannot tolerate anyone photographing or videotaping them or mocking them. Maybe the cops there should just change their name to Renton Gestapo.